January Athletes of the Month

Assistant Principal Jon Varlamos congratulates the January Athletes of the Month.

Congratulations to Desiree Kleberg on earning Athlete of the Month for January! Desiree is a shooting guard for the Girls Varsity Basketball team and plays volleyball and lacrosse as well in the fall and spring seasons. She is involved in the National Honor Society and Word Language Honor Society and has been accepted into the honors program at Quinnipiac University. This year on the basketball team, Desiree would describe the team as small because of the numerous injuries her teammates have endured. “I’ve had to play a lot of different positions because a lot of my teammates have gotten injured this year but we’ve worked through the struggles and are communicating better,” Desiree shared as she recognizes how close she’s gotten with her teammates. “My favorite part about being at Whitman is that everyone is really close. As a senior, I’ve noticed my classmates and I interact more because we know we’re graduating this year.” Desiree plans to study biology and play lacrosse while attending Quinnipiac this fall.

Congratulations to Joe Feola on earning Athlete of the Month for January! Joe is a junior Walt Whitman wrestler who won the League Championship recently in his weight class of 152 lbs. Joe started wrestling in 7th grade in the 99lb weight class and has been working his way up every since. Joe’s favorite part about Whitman is the fan base, saying “no matter which sport is being played, we always have lots of fans and so much support from everyone.” This is the first year the team has been without Coach Altebrando since his passing in 2018 and Joe said “the returning guys are all wrestling for him. It’s hard for the freshmen who never got to know him so the new guys are trying to adapt to what we’re working towards which is to do our best, win or lose, and our mindset is to do it for him.”